SPOILERS for anyone who's still pure…..

Ah, Sophist said almost exactly what I was aiming for above, only better and sooner.

I never thought for a second that the final shot implies the asylum is reality. The hangup seems to be - correct me if I'm wrong - "if the asylum is a hallucination, who's holding the camera?", i.e. how could we be seeing the asylum if indeed that is the fake world and Buffy has chosen to give it up? I really like the…

Blech - It does seem like critics' tastes inevitably wind up diverging from a normal audience's just because critics see so. many. more. movies. They see the echoes of dozens of similar stories and go "Ugh, this AGAIN?" whereas someone who doesn't consume as much wouldn't have that problem.